Three submissions were made in August-September to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) calling for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to be de-listed as a terrorist organisation.

The law firm Stary Norton Halphen (associated with the well-known Melbourne criminal lawyer Rob Stary) made a submission on behalf of the Democratic Kurdish Community Centre of NSW and the Kurdish Democratic Community Centre of Victoria.

Dr Vicki Sentas, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of NSW in Sydney also made a submission.

In the event the PKK was retained on the list of terrorist organisations. The government’s extremely flimsy and unconvincing rationale can be found here.

[The following submission was made by Australians for Kurdistan to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on August 31, 2018 for de-listing the Kurdistan Workers Party as a terrorist organisation under the Criminal Code Act 1995]

1. Australians for Kurdistan
Australians for Kurdistan (AFK) is an unincorporated solidarity group of non-Kurdish Australians drawn from all walks of life who come together to support the Kurdish liberation struggle in Australia. AFK liaises closely with members of the Kurdish community and is responsible for organising and undertaking a range of activities including public meetings and conferences; the preparation and distribution of written materials such as information brochures and longer publications; contributions to the media on relevant matters; and engagement with elected representatives and others in the Australian political system. Continue reading →

Saturday, May 26 is World Afrin Day. Here in Melbourne there are two events to note:

Rally & march: Solidarity with Afrin. Turkey out of Syria! No Aust ties with Turkey! Turkey is carrying out large-scale ethnic cleansing in Afrin in northwestern Syria. Some 150,000 Kurds have been forced out to be replaced with Syrian Arab refugees and jihadists and their families. Yet the West is silent. The Turnbull government has said nothing. Join us in a rally and march on World Afrin Day. 2pm. State Library, 328 Swanston St,City. Organised by Kurdish Democratic Community Centre of Victoria & Australians for Kurdistan. (Photo: London rally, March 31.) Facebook

[By Peter Boyle] Solidarity groups, sympathetic NGOs and Kurdish Associations are planning a global campaign across Europe, Australia, Canada and the US to materially support the people displaced from Afrin following its invasion and occupation by Turkish military and allied Islamist militia groups. Continue reading →

An emergency organising meeting to discuss action responses to Turkey’s invasion of Afrin was held at Melbourne’s Multicultural Hub on April 20. The meeting resolved to hold a series of big information stalls at key transport hubs in the city.

The first will take place at Flinders Street Station on Friday, April 27 from 4:30 to 6pm. We will hand out leaflets to commuters and talk to people about the issue and the utterly shameful silence of the Turnbull government. We will also have all the usual paraphenalia and will do some spruiking.

If you support northern Syria’s feminist, democratic, pluralist revolution and are appalled by Turkey’s brazen invasion and ethnic cleansing of Afrin, come along on April 27! The more people participating the bigger impact we will make.

Turkey: Get out of Syria! Australia: End the silence about Turkey’s ethnic cleansing in Afrin!

[The following is the text of a leaflet issued by Australians for Kurdistan.] Afrin is a small region in northwestern Syria, on the Turkish border. During the seven-year civil war Afrin was the most peaceful part of the country. Before the war it was mainly populated by Kurds. It took in hundreds of thousands of refugees (mainly Arab), giving them security and full rights. Afrin was the geographically isolated, most western canton of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. The DFNS is organised on the principles of feminism, ecology, communal democracy, and ethnic and religious pluralism. Continue reading →

[The following letter was submitted to The Age on March 29 but not printed.]

As concerned Australians, we condemn Turkey’s invasion of the mainly Kurdish canton of Afrin in northern Syria, and call on the Australian Government do all in its power to protest and stop Turkey’s aggression. Continue reading →

[The following article by AFK’s John Tully was carried by the online Tasmanian Times.] The darkness at the core of Australia’s foreign policy is highlighted both by Canberra’s silence over the invasion of Afrin, and by its push to become one of the world’s top ten arms exporters. The Kurds should beware. The Turnbull government wants to be quartermaster for any despot who will pay and one of the worst is the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Read full article here.

[The following article is from ANF News. The Turkish regime is threatening to once more make a major military incursion into northern Iraq with the aim of crushing the PKK forces based in the Qandil mountains. Karasu refers to the 1995 Turkish Steel Operation in which 35,000 Turkish troops attacked PKK positions across the border.]

KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Executive Council Member Mustafa Karasu stated that they are prepared for any and all attacks the AKP-MHP fascism has in store for Bashure (Southern) Kurdistan and added: “Like they barely escaped in the Zap and Çelik operations, they will certainly face the same fate in any invasion operations against Southern Kurdistan and Qandil.” Karasu stressed: “Not the Turkish state, nor any other colonialist can ever break the will for resistance in the PKK.”Continue reading →